


I Don't Mind This Game

by That_One_Hufflepuff



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone is friends, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, doubt that one though, even if it's not tagged, everyone gets their shit together eventually, maybe a lil tiny bit tho, probably no smut, sorry folks, those are just the basics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 14,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24119275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_One_Hufflepuff/pseuds/That_One_Hufflepuff
Summary: So... what if Quentin didn't die? What if that mirror never broke and he didn't have to cast? What if, instead of taking their sweet time tossing those flasks in, Penny and Alice and Q got it done? What would've happened then?That's right, friends, foes, and comrades, it's the fix-it fic that is approximately a full year late and that absolutely nobody asked for. There will be angst! There will be near death experiences! Eventually, there will be love! Strap on your seatbelts, everyone, it's about to get fun. This is absolutely, 100% canon-divergent for anything after the season 4 finale, just to clarify.**currently on hiatus until i get my shit together**
Relationships: Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman, Quentin Coldwater & Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, William "Penny" Adiyodi & Kady Orloff-Diaz
Comments: 38
Kudos: 99





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Right-o, just a few quick notes before we begin! I don't do super well with deadlines, so I can't promise to hold myself to any specific schedule. Lucky for you, dear reader, I happen to have plenty of spare time on my hands at the moment, so updates will probably be roughly every week. 
> 
> I have a lot of chapters already written or at least started and that's also going to help but once we get into uncharted territory you might see a slight slowdown. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The chapters might be a little shorter than you're used to but please don't let that stand in the way. I'm trying my hardest.
> 
> Also, I promise (cross my heart and hope to die) that this is a *fix-it*, not a *destroy your soul* fic. The first little bit is rough, but it'll even out. Just bear with me for a minute.

The door is white. 

Many things are white, actually. Quentin’s vision has become an odd grayscale. _I guess this is what it’s like to be colorblind?_ he thinks, standing just behind Alice in front of the door.

Alice hesitates, her hand twitching above the doorknob. She hums. He can feel discomfort radiating off of her.

“Alice?” He’s ready to follow it up with an _“Are you okay?”_ but she beats him to it.

“Just give me a sec.”

“Well, listen to your gut next time,” Penny says, leaning in and grabbing the doorknob. The door creaks open, remarkably plain. Quentin follows Penny into the room quickly, clutching his flask with both hands. Alice hesitates outside the doorway before following.

“It’s the lab,” Quentin remarks with surprise. “Why…?”

“Who cares,” says Penny, because of course. He walks quickly towards a large, sheet-covered object on the other side of the room. He grabs the sheet, waiting for Quentin to take hold of the other side to pull it down. “Careful,” he says.

The sheet flows off what Quentin assumes is a mirror. The mirror part is gone, however, with a portal to something else in its place. The space is deep blue and silvery, with some black thing at the center that seems to radiate darkness the same way the sun radiates light. It’s mesmerizing, and Quentin finds himself staring into the depths of the thing. _It’s the Seam_ , he thinks, _just like the Binder said._

Experimentally, he dips the flask into the mirror. It slides in naturally, easily, almost like it wants to be in the Seam. He looks back quickly at Penny and Alice, just to make sure, and then he drops it in. It’s gone. It’s done. It’s quiet and calm and the completion of the task feels so good.

So, of course, there’s a crash from somewhere outside. Penny passes his flask to Alice before he whips around and runs to the door, poking his head outside to look around.

“Quick, quick, give me the other flask,” Quentin says, breathless. Alice tosses it to him. There are footsteps outside the room and a shout from Penny. The second bottle follows the first into the Seam and it feels like the whole universe sighs in relief. 

“Hey, HEY!” Penny shouts. “What the fuck, dude?!” There’s a _thunk_ sound and Penny makes an annoyed grunt. Alice whips around to the entrance to the room. A man is standing there, vaguely familiar and very angry. Penny stands just behind him, a bruise blossoming on his face, hands out to his sides.

“What have you done?” the man whispers, rage flowing off him in shuddering waves. “I was going to be a _god_. It was going to be _beautiful_.” He’s wearing a tailored suit and some thin, round glasses and his face is dark with anger. He moves slowly into the center of the room. The three watch him warily.

“No,” Alice says, “You would have destroyed everything.” She inches towards the wall, trying to distance himself from him.

“They were MINE,” the man screams. “ _Mine_ , you ruined _everything_.” Quentin tries to move towards the door but the man points an angry finger at him. “Don’t you move,” he says. Quentin raises two hands in a peacemaking gesture. He makes eye contact with Penny and tries to tell him to get Alice out of there before everything goes to shit. His feelings for Alice are… complicated, to say the least, but she won’t be getting hurt on his account. Not today, and not ever, if he has anything to do with it. Reluctantly, he also cares for Penny. Whatever happens, they’ll be safer outside the room than in it.

Slowly, slowly, Penny moves out of the room, guiding Alice by her elbow. Quentin keeps up a stream of talk with the man, hoping with every fiber of his being that he won’t notice the two people leaving the room. When they’re out of sight he deflates. The man gives him a look.

“I know you’ve been stalling,” he says. “Very noble of you. Noble, but to no end, I’m afraid.” Quentin tenses. _What now?_

“Why’s that?” he asks, using the tone of voice one would use on a wild animal. “They’re long gone by now. You won’t be able to harm them, not today, anyway.” He feels calmer than he has in a long time. He can almost feel what’s going to happen, sees it in the way the man holds his arms and stands on his legs, knows it by the look in his eyes. Time slows nearly to a stop.

The man springs forward, launching himself at Quentin and the Seam behind him, wrapping an arm around Quentin’s midsection and pulling the two of them into the Seam. The _why_ of the whole situation eludes Quentin, but that’s not quite important at the moment. Panic roils somewhere below in his stomach, but his mind is still calm, like a glass sea. Some kind of sick satisfaction rings through his body. _It’s over,_ some voice says. _It’s all over now._

The Seam is frigid, like the vacuum of deep space might be, and he feels its repulsive cold seep further and further up his body as the man pulls him in. _At least he’s not going in headfirst,_ he thinks, _that would be really unpleasant._

But then his fingers catch hold of something. The panic freezes into cold determination and the voice, while silent, seems disappointed. His one free arm grips the frame of the mirror, the other pinned to his side by the crazed man. A jolt stutters through his body and he feels the man’s grip start to slide off, his arm moving from Quentin’s torso to his thighs to his ankles and then, as Quentin points his feet, it disappears entirely. He doesn’t look back to see what’s happening. He doesn’t kick. He just holds on, drags his other arm up to join the first, and feels the cold.

He breathes. He holds. He waits.

He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, but he hangs peaceful and still. It’s deadly silent in the Seam. He listens to the quiet. He keeps waiting.

After an indeterminate amount of time (somewhere between two minutes, two hours, and two days), he flexes his arms. Quentin isn’t out of shape, exactly, but it’s been a minute since he worked out. Even so... shouldn’t he be able to pull himself up?

_Worthless,_ says the voice, _Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Can’t even do a pull-up._ He pushes the words back. He’s dealt with it before, when holding the void key, and before that for years and years and years. It’s nothing new. 

But it’s never been perfectly correct before.

He _can’t_ do a pull-up. 

He flexes his arms again. Nothing happens. Tries it again. Nothing. He sees the tendons in his hands strain, but his elbows don’t move, his arms don’t move, his body doesn’t move. He can’t move. 

And of course, panic writhes up to the front of his mind.

_You’ll never get out_ , it says. _You’ll be stuck here forever. You’ll never see Julia again, or Eliot, or Alice. You’re gone forever._

_You’re pathetic,_ adds the other voice. _Maybe if you’d moved quicker you wouldn’t be in this situation. You’re absolutely worthless. They won’t miss you at all_.

_Just let go_ , says a third voice, the same one that had been unhappy when he’d grabbed hold of the mirror frame. _It doesn’t matter anyways._

_They’ll come back for me_ , he protests. _They always have_. The voices rage. He ignores them. He closes his eyes. He breathes. He holds on.

He waits.


	2. The Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang (minus Quentin) discusses next steps and... kind of gets into it, just a little.

“You did _what?_ ” Eliot’s voice is deadly cold. 

“Eliot, we had to. We had no idea what was gonna happen. I mean, I dunno about you, but I’d rather be alive right now than potentially blown up by some spell,” Penny says, somehow managing to be diplomatic and obnoxious at the same time. 

“You left him in the mirror dimension with some psycho who wants to be a god,” Eliot deadpans.

“I didn’t want to leave him either,” Alice butts in. “He asked us to, Eliot. We didn’t really have a choice, anyway.” Eliot is silent. His face is blank, but he’s clearly tamping down a roiling sea of emotions in his head.

The cottage is quiet and empty, save for Eliot, Margo, Penny, Alice, and Julia. Josh is probably getting high somewhere else, and Kady is working on hedge business in the city. Sunlight streams in the big bay window and the smaller ones around in the kitchen. The TADA sign is turned off, the D is still hanging on a single nail, off-balance. The five of them are sitting in the living room, slouched on various couches and armchairs. Eliot is propped up gently with a couple of pillows, stomach wound still healing. 

Professor Lipson had done a few smaller spells to patch up internal damage; but in an effort to conserve what little ambient magic was available for the binding spell, she’d stitched up anything she could with her hands (the “old-fashioned way,” as she called it). Eliot had particularly appreciated the pain-numbing spell she’d cast. 

“Look, we have to logic this. The man is probably still--” Julia starts, but Eliot interrupts her.

“You too? Is no one else scared shitless that Quentin’s actually dead right now?” His voice is laden with incredulity. 

“El, we’re all scared,” Margo says, squeezing his hand where their fingers are intertwined. “But Q’s a smart dude. He’s not the kind of person to do stupid shit. I don’t think he’s dead.” Eliot’s face snaps to hers, an angry retort on his lips, but Margo beats him to it. “There’s always the possibility,” she says with a placating tone, “but let’s be optimistic here.” Eliot closes his mouth. He nods tightly. He looks back to Julia.

“Continue?” She rolls her eyes.

“Like I was _saying_ ,” she says lightly, “The man is probably still in there somewhere. Quentin is most likely trying to put some space between them, but like Margo said, he isn’t stupid. He’s not going to leave us a blank slate, especially since he knows that we’re his only chance of getting out. My guess is we’re going to end up following a trail. Not a clear one, obviously, if he’s hiding, but he’s going to leave us clues.”

“Your point?” Eliot asks, and maybe it’s a little rude, but it’s a reasonable question, and he wants to just get going already.”

“We start in the room with the mirror and work out from there. Easiest way to find a trail is to start looking at the beginning, right?” Julia says, looking around at the faces in the room. She gets nods from almost everyone.

“Hey, this sounds like a great idea and all, but I think you guys are forgetting how you’re getting in there and staying,” says Penny, voice like a stone. “I gotta cut myself for every minute you guys want to spend in there. Not that I don’t want to find Quentin,” he says, looking at Julia, “but I can’t reasonably keep that thing open for more than a few minutes at a time.”

“How long can you give us?” asks Julia with a look of concern.

“Maybe… twenty, thirty minutes?” Penny says, thinking. “It’s impossible to do anything more than forty-five. That’s just Traveler rules. And I’m not a veteran, or practiced, or anything. Shit would get really bad after thirty minutes. Twenty seems reasonable. But if we don’t find him today, we could always try again in a few days. I just need time to recover.”

Julia nods. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Wait, wait. Is there any kind of food or water in there?” Alice asks. “Is there any way for him to provide for himself?” The room goes dead silent. They hadn’t considered that aspect. 

“Anyone with untold Mirror Dimension experience?” asks Margo. Blank faces look back at her and Alice.

“We shouldn’t assume,” says Alice. “The human body can go without water for three days. We need to get him out before then.” 

The new timeframe makes the rescue seem even less possible.

“So, let me get this straight,” Penny says, deadpan. “We have two or _maybe_ three twenty-minute periods to search an entire dimension for a dude we don’t even know is alive. I’m going to be losing blood by the bucket, and you guys are going to be going into uncharted territory with no way to use spells safely. Oh, and don’t forget, potentially coming in contact with a crazed maniac bent on becoming a god. Is it really…”

He stops before finishing the sentence, but everyone knows what he was about to say. Margo squeezes Eliot’s hand again and gives him a look, begging him not to go off at Penny. His jaw is clenched and the hand not holding Margo’s is curled into a fist, knuckles white. Alice looks angry, too, though she keeps it much better hidden.

“We have to try,” says Julia, ever the logical influence. There’s a minute of silence and some nods. 

“I need a fucking drink,” Eliot says, struggling to his feet. “Anyone else?” Penny and Alice raise their hands. His lips turn down and he raises his eyebrows, surprised. “Unusual crowd,” he mumbles.


	3. Quentin Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the rest of the eight are planning a rescue, Quentin is... well. Stuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really short but I'm planning on sending another update your way tomorrow (or maybe later today). It will also be fairly short. The chapters I'm writing right now are getting pretty nice and long, though, so it won't always be like this, I swear :)

The Seam is cold. Really, really cold. Quentin couldn’t feel it earlier, but now it echoes through his bones, making his extremities slowly numb. He’s tired, so tired, and the voice in the back of his head tells him that it’s time to let go. That he’s waited long enough.

That they won’t come back for him.

… But he can feel it. He _knows,_ somehow, that if only he holds on for just a little longer, it’ll all be okay. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, or maybe it’s real. He’d shift his grip if he could.

The quiet is starting to get to him. The voices arguing in his head (which he’s named Panic, Ridicule, and Destruct) seem less and less like they live in his head and more and more like people (or at least things) floating around with him in the Seam. It’s more than a little disconcerting. 

On top of that, sometimes he hears _other_ voices. He’s heard Julia say things occasionally, single words like ‘logic’ and ‘give,’ little thoughts that don’t make any sense. Eliot said ‘scared’ once and ‘drink’ once and ‘peach’ another time, and Quentin couldn’t help but roll the words around in his head, on his immobile tongue, trying to capture and keep the intonation, the echo, the warmth of Eliot’s voice with him for as long as possible. Alice has made a few appearances, too. 

He’s not sure if these voices are actually in his head or the result of some kind of Seam weirdness. Penny’s said all of maybe three words, and Margo and Josh and Kady have been on radio silence as well, but Julia and Eliot have popped into his head time after time. _Maybe it’s selective,_ he thinks. _Maybe it’s not in my head_. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the words that he hears, which is what makes him think that the voices aren’t just his imagination.

Voices aside, he’s figured out a few things about both the Seam and the Mirror Dimension. First, it doesn’t seem like there’s regular Earth gravity in the Seam. It’s definitely decreased. He can tell because, had he been holding up his full Earth-weight, he would’ve had to let go a long time ago. Second, he’s lucky to have grabbed the mirror, since his momentum would have pushed him along endlessly into the Seam, and then there would’ve been no escaping because of the odd paralysis he’s feeling. No escape of any kind: you can’t kill yourself if you can’t move. He will, he supposes, die of thirst or starvation eventually. But he’d rather go quickly and with dignity than slowly and painfully, especially here.

Especially now.

Third, he’s tired. Very tired. But he doesn’t want to risk sleeping in case his friends were to arrive or his hands were to come loose. He remembers reading somewhere that the world record time spent awake was something like eleven days, but he’d die of dehydration long before that. Three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, three weeks without food, he knows. He doesn’t relish the idea of dying of dehydration. It sounds very unpleasant.

He wonders if Eliot is even alive, if maybe Quentin can hear him because he’s dead. He’s not sure why he cares so much, not after that strongly-worded rejection and the fact that he and Alice more-or-less decided to try again, but he does. He can’t shake the feelings he’s had. _Fifty years, peaches and plums_ , he thinks. _I’m alive in here_.


	4. A Decision Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice can lie. Kady is shocked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm just noticing now that a whole lot of the chapters are pretty short? Yikes. Sorry about that. On a more positive note, we just broke 10k words on the Google doc this is in! Super excited. Hope you guys enjoy :)

They have decided to bring in a consultant.

Well, a consultant, plus whoever else she brings in. 

The consultant is Zelda. They have no idea what kind of information she has or people she knows (well, besides Harriet), but they figure, she’s the Head Librarian of the ONL. If anyone can give them some tips and tricks, it’s her.

Kady and Alice come up with the idea, surprisingly, sitting together in the cottage living room. 

“I mean, _clearly_ we’re not going to get this approved by Fogg. He’d never let us go back in ourselves,” Kady says, swirling something around in its glass.

“But we can’t do it alone,” returns Alice. “There’s so many variables. I’ve only had a slight brush with the Mirror Dimension, that time I put Harriet back together, and it was almost a complete disaster. We need to know what we’re doing.”

“Why not talk to Harriet herself about it, then? I mean, she’s been in there before. Seems like a no-brainer, and I’ve been meaning to talk to her for a while. Isn’t she with the Library now, or something?” Kady asks.

“Wait!” Alice yelps, shooting out a hand to grab Kady by the forearm.

“Yes, ma’am,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

“Harriet’s mom is Zelda. We could just ask her what she knows, right? She’s definitely got second-hand knowledge from Harriet. Maybe she knows somewhere else we could get information, too.”

“I actually like that,” Kady says, perking up and setting her drink aside. “Gives me a chance to grab some books for some hedges I know. Besides, whatever she can tell us is certified good shit.” Alice gives her a look. “She’s not going to tell us stuff she knows is wrong. And she knows almost everything.”

“Fair point,” says Alice. “How do we get in there, though? We don’t exactly have any easy access to the Neitherlands at the moment.”

“I mean… we could always ask Fogg to set up an appointment or something.” Kady leans back on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

“But then we’re right back where we were.” Alice sounds testy. “We can’t talk to Fogg about the Mirror Dimension, he’ll shut us down before we even get a chance to explain.”

“Ok, ok, hold on, _just to clarify_ , Fogg knows that the bottles are gone but he doesn’t know about Quentin?” She leans forward with her elbows on her knees.

Alice nods.

“How the hell did you guys manage that?” There’s a slightly bemused, slightly shocked, and very interested smile on Kady’s face.

“We just… haven’t told him the details yet,” Alice says. “Teachers think he’s sick and we’re helping him out a little. Not enough to need Lipson to come over,” she says quickly, “just enough that maybe someone should stick around the cottage.”

Kady grins like a cheshire cat. “Color me impressed. Most of you are such bad liars it seems like you’d never be able to pull off something like that.” Alice smiles a little.

“It was mostly me, actually.” Kady’s eyebrows almost disappear into her hairline. There’s a full second of silence before she shakes her head and leans back into the couch again.

“Filing that away for later,” she says, and Alice’s smile grows. “So,” Kady continues, “We lie to Fogg _again_ to get him to set up a research appointment with Zelda, we ask her questions, we go back in, we get Quentin the hell out of there. How’s that for a plan?”

“Sounds good to me,” says Alice. “Just, uh, maybe someone else do the lying this time. I pulled it off that one time, but I think maybe it was a one-time performance”

Kady smiles. “Get Margo to do it. I’m sure she’ll come up with something.”


	5. Eliot Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot isn't dealing... spectacularly, to say the least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one today, folks. Also, I absolutely made a little update schedule in my hear (Mondays/Thursdays) and then proceeded to not post yesterday. I was serious when I said I can't hold a schedule. Maybe it'll end up being Tuesdays/Fridays? We'll see. Enjoy today's update! I'll be back with more soon.

The waiting is the worst part. It _should_ be illegal under the Geneva Convention, Eliot thinks, being forced to wait for something as important as this. Quentin is in there, somewhere, maybe barely hanging on to life, and instead of going in to find him they’re fucking─ they’re trying to be _safe_ about it. 

Like that’s ever stopped them before.

It’s infuriating. Look at the number of times they’ve done something supremely stupid and dangerous _without_ learning about it first. I mean, honestly. He remembers going headfirst into Fillory with Quentin for the quest; and the aftermath of the dragon egg debacle, when Penny hadn’t been able to put down his egg and Quentin had balanced his on his face; and how Quentin had killed Cancer Puppy within his first few months of being at Brakebills; how _stupid_ and _headstrong_ and _stubborn_ Quentin could be when he wanted to, the dangerous gleam in his eyes when he got a bad idea. 

A lot of the time, it’s Quentin making the bad decisions. _He’s very good at that,_ Eliot smiles. _Putting his life on the line for some stupid fucking thing._ He remembers when Quentin had been so dead-set on becoming the jailer for the monster in upside-down Fillory. His heart had still been kind of raw then, after cruelly turning Quentin down. He hadn’t realized it then, of course, why he felt so shitty all the time: he’d already buried the memory. Maybe Quentin had, too. 

Maybe the monster taking over his head had been a blessing, in some sick, twisted way. At least he’d _confronted_ the mess that had been his feelings towards Quentin, even if he hadn’t had the chance to act on said feelings. Once Quentin gets out, he’ll get to start over, get to make something good out of this whole situation.

_If_ Quentin gets out, he remembers. Psycho, wannabe-god, and all that. Stuck in there. With Quentin. Maybe making a meal out of his liver.

Eliot shakes his head and stands quickly, moving for the bar, but he’s greeted by a wave of pain. _Too_ quickly, it turns out, is a problem for his still-healing injury. Margo was not pulling her punches when she hit him with that… whatever. Scythe? Axe? He has no idea. But it hurt like hell, and _still_ kind of hurts like hell, and that’s all that really matters.

He walks gingerly to the bar, pulling down a glass and some various liquids and herbs from the shelves with a few simple tuts, going purely by flavor profiles and not any specific recipe. _This_ bottle wants _this_ kind of a companion, he knows, and _these_ herbs and _this_ final touch. He pours carefully, measuring out small amounts of alcohol into the shaker, before grabbing a muddler off the shelf and mashing his mix of herbs into a fragrant mess in the bottom of the glass. He pops some ice into the shaker (to chill it) before mixing the whole thing up. Into the glass go three lovely-shaped ice cubes, followed by a perfect pour of the alcohol mixture. On top goes a sprig of something that he could give a full description of but not a name, and then he gives it a swish and knocks down a sip. 

It’s disgusting.

Quentin would love it.

He pours it down the sink and grabs onto the counter as a wave of nausea rolls through him, taking a steadying breath. It’s not enough to quell the bile rising in his throat and he barely makes it to the bathroom in time for all the food he’s eaten today to come up in reverse. He kneels shaking on the ground in front of the toilet.

_This fucking sucks_ , is all he can think. And then, _Maybe I should just do it myself. How hard could it be?_ If Quentin could manage to get in, then so could he, dammit. 

But there was still the issue of the psycho.

In there.

With Quentin.

And maybe with Eliot, if he decided to go in on his own. What was the point of doing stupid things if he couldn’t do it with Quentin? If he died, he would _certainly_ never see Quentin again. Better to wait until he could at least bring someone with for safety. Better to wait, just to be safe.

_God, I hope Quentin’s safe._


	6. The Consultant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margo and Alice talk their way into getting some help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha! Here we are, Friday morning, and remembered to update! Currently working through the last few weeks of school and even though we can't have sit-down tests most of my teachers are still assigning big projects or take-home tests or whatever for final semester grades. Will this affect the content y'all are getting? Maybe. Hopefully not. I haven't been able to get very much time to write this lately, but I'm still pretty far ahead chapters-wise, so I'm thinking it'll be fine. Anyway. enjoy the chapter.

“You need to talk to Zelda… why?” Dean Fogg asks.

“It’s a research project,” Margo says smoothly. “Alice and I became very interested in the Mirror Dimension after… what happened. We figured that she would be easy to reach and easy to talk to and would know plenty about it or at least be able to point us in the right direction.” The words roll off her tongue with the ease of a practiced liar. For once, Margo is thankful for her skills. 

“Was this assigned? I can’t remember any teachers talking to me about research at our last meeting,” he says, leaning forward on his desk.

“Oh, no, just plain curiosity,” Margo tells him. Alice nods enthusiastically next to her. 

“We figured that with our group’s unique experiences we could bring some new light into the mystery surrounding the Mirror dimension,” Alice says. “It would be a shame to put this opportunity to waste.”

Dean Fogg has his skeptical face on. Margo gives him a friendly smile even as she feels like cursing. Their facade is falling away, she can feel it. He gives them a long, even stare, and Margo hopes against hope that Alice is keeping up that innocent, curious face. If either of them falter, the game is up. And they will be in _major_ trouble.

“Alright,” Fogg says with a shake of his head, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll contact her. When were you thinking of meeting?”

“Oh, as soon as possible,” Alice blurts. It’s too loud, too sudden. “That way the memory is still fresh,” she amends. _Good save,_ Margo thinks, making a mental note to give the girl more credit in the cover-up department.

Fogg raises his eyebrows as he picks up the phone. Margo and Alice stand frozen. 

“You can go,” he says. “I’ll let you know when she’s next available.” Margo grins.

“Thanks so much!” she chirps, smile feeling faker by the second. She turns to leave, tapping Alice on the arm to get her moving. She waits until they’re five paces outside his office with a closed door between them to let out her breath. “He knows something’s up. He’ll set us up with Zelda, but we’ve got to be careful.”

“Yeah, I could see that. Do you think she knows? About Quentin?”

“No idea. I guess we’ll find out,” Margo says. They breeze out of the building the Dean’s office in and head straight for the Cottage.

They arrive to a noisy scene. Someone apparently didn’t get the memo that now is not the time for partying because there is quite a bit of prep going on for some kind of bash. Margo can’t even blame Josh for it. Everyone in their group is in a state of mental instability and Josh is no exception. 

“One would think that the whole ‘near-apocalyptic-event’ thing would dampen spirits for a moment, but evidently not,” Margo says. Alice laughs. Margo practically kicks the door open. “Who’s fault is this?” she shouts, getting the attention of everyone in the room. 

There’s some noises of confusion.

“I don’t know _how_ this wasn’t clear, but apparently _some_ of you can’t pick up on social cues. Take it somewhere else! Physical kids can’t throw parties all the time, we’ve gotta recharge. Have your party somewhere else. We’re having a moment.” There’s grumbling. “Or come back in a week or so,” Margo says. “I’m sure we’ll have something... interesting going on by then.”

After seeing that people have begun undoing their party preparations, Margo sweeps upstairs with Alice into Eliot’s room where the rest of the gang have piled in. They’re all there, even Julia, who’s status at Brakebills is… questionable, to say the least. Everyone sits forward a little when Margo and Alice walk in.

“So?” Josh asks. “What happened?”

“Fogg is suspicious,” Margo tells them. “We’re gonna need to be really, really careful.”

“But he said that he’d talk to Zelda for us and try to schedule a time.”

“So… we’re good?” Kady asks.

“Yea, we’re good,” Margo grins. “We got it.”


	7. Reentry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In they go! Fun times are on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Super sorry I've been off with the updates recently. I have about a week and a half left of school which means that all of the projects and exams are happening right about now, so I haven't had a lot of time to write or a lot of braincells to spare for this fic. I promise once I'm finished I will be devoting a whole lot more effort to writing new chapters and giving you guys the content you want, but it's gonna be a little slow for another minute here. I'm really, really sorry about that, I'm gonna try and get back on the upload train soon. Also, yeah, like the summary says... fun times are on the horizon. Here comes the angst/hurt/comfort train.

The sun is setting in a brilliant halo of golds and pinks and oranges, fading to a bluish black speckled with stars. _Peaches and plums_ , Eliot thinks, _please be alive_. 

They got lucky. Very, very lucky. Either Fogg had suspected the real situation or Zelda had known or some gracious being up in the sky had been pulling strings because Fogg sent a message just about an hour after Margo and Alice had gone to talk to him. They talked with her for about three hours, covering as much ground as possible. They made amendments to their plan which had previously been absolutely shitty and came to a couple of conclusions.

First: no one travels alone. A buddy system is one of the easiest ways to avoid more deaths.

Second: no spellcasting of any kind, no matter the circumstances. Seems like a no-brainer, but to battle magicians like Kady, it was an important point to hit.

Third: someone stays with Penny. They needed to keep the portal open, and Penny couldn’t do that if he was fighting off a Shard or that maniac.

Fourth: bring back Quentin, dead or alive, as morbid as it sounds.

The last conclusion: Eliot stays behind.

He’d been furious about that one. 

“You think some fucking stitches are going to slow us down that much?” he’d practically shouted. “I should come! You know I should, Margo, come on…” But Margo had agreed. It’d been a unanimous decision, minus Eliot, of course. 

“I don’t want to risk getting you even more hurt, El,” she’d said, a mess of emotions scribbled across her face. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t patronize me, Bambi,” he’d told her angrily, smoke practically coming out of his ears. “You know that’s all such bullshit.” But then he’d spent half an hour putting funny little braids in her hair while everyone argued about how exactly they should search the damn place, so she knew he hadn’t really meant it.

That had been this afternoon. Now the sun is setting in a color palette that reminds him painfully of… _fruit_... and the smells and the faces and the time and the _feelings_ , the fucking feelings that he associates with them. He sits facing away from the windows and towards the staging area for their little dimensional heist, but the pinkish-golden glow lights up everything in the lab, and he can see it reflected in the glass that’s present everywhere in the room. He can’t escape his feelings. He’s done running from them.

Now all that’s left is to wait and see.

“I’ll go with Alice,” Julia volunteers. “Josh, do you wanna stay back with Penny? And Margo with Kady?”

“I really don’t think it matters,” Kady says. “As long as I don’t have to…” she trails off, glancing in Penny’s direction. 

“Exactly,” Julia says. “Everyone good with this? We’re not gonna have drama everywhere? No fighting over… whatever?” Her hands are splayed in front of her, eyes darting amongst the faces in the room.

“I still don’t see why I can’t go,” Eliot says, pouting in the corner.

“You’re alone in that, Eliot,” says Margo. 

“Besides, it’s even numbers this way,” says Alice quietly. “And we have someone on the outside if everything goes to shit.”

Josh nods emphatically. “We need you out here, Eliot,” he says in a rare moment of sincerity. “And you’re more useful alive than dead, anyways.”

“Bullshit,” Eliot says. “But I’ll do it.” He sinks further back into his chair, stormy.

“Well then,” says Alice. “Shall we get started?”

The door is white. 

That’s one thing that hasn’t changed, at least: the color scheme is still the same off-putting grayscale. Everything else feels different.

Julia’s hand hovers over the door handle as she hesitates for a second. She takes a deep breath and swings the door open. 

The room is emptier than their lab, and colder, with a massive mirror-like structure in the middle. 

“Okay, team, let’s get to it,” she says, falsely cheerful. Margo snorts derisively.

The plan is, for the most part, simple. Start with a good sweep of the lab, move out from there. Scream if anything bad happens. Yell (and yes, there is a distinction between screaming and yelling) if you find Quentin. Get in and out as fast as possible. Be careful. 

The four of them walk in on eggshells, slowly moving towards the mirror-- or, what would be a mirror. It’s a portal, really, and it goes to the place the Binder had called the Seam. Darkness radiates from it. It’s breathtaking.

“Are those notches in the frame?” Julia asks, looking at some out-of-place shapes etched into the mirror’s edge.

“Wait, those weren’t there before,” Alice says, moving a little quicker.

“Hold on, are those--” Kady starts, disbelief and horror in her voice.

“Oh my god,” says Margo.

“Q?”


	8. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! I'm back. School is ~so close~ to being done. This is the last of the shorter length chapters, from here on out it's usually about 1k+ words per chapter, so that's pretty jazzy. 
> 
> I'm considering going back into old chapters and editing or reworking them. It sounds pretty funky, I know, but suffice to say that the writer me of six months ago isn't the exact same writer me as right now. That might be a pain in the ass for some people who have been here for a while, but there is some stuff that I just don't really like and would like to change somewhat. Please please let me know in the comments if you guys would be chill with that.
> 
> Anyway enjoy the update. Next one will be up soonish. I'm making steady progress on new chapters (a little slower than I'd like, because my Brain Bandwidth isn't spectacular right now and they are quite a bit longer) and I'm super excited for you guys to see the fun plot stuff I'm coming up with.

“Q?”

Julia’s voice echoes through Quentin’s head. It’s the umpteenth time he’s heard her since he fell in. He ignores it. He’s tired. It’s been so long. It’s probably only one of those interspace echoes anyways. That, or he’s just going crazy. All bets are off.

“Oh, shit, oh my god,” says Margo, and that’s strange, because none of them ever really say full phrases. Unfortunately, he can’t look around to see what the fuck is going on, so he just stares out at the void and resigns himself to his own insanity. _How many hours is it that a person can go without sleep?_ he wonders idly. _Probably a few more_. 

“Q? Can you hear us?” It’s Alice this time, and he’d answer if he could: she sounds distressed and, although he may or may not be rethinking his relationship with her, he certainly doesn’t want to cause distress. Even if she’s a voice in his head.

But then he feels something on his hands, his upper arms, and _screams_ internally. The thing pulls him out, and he can feel the Seam sticky on his body, trying to pull him back in like a pool of old horror movie slime. The cool colors of the Mirror Dimension wash over him, and he sees four faces in his strangely blurry vision: Julia, Margo, Kady, and Alice. _What do you know_ , he thinks, _not totally crazy_. 

His body is stiff and cold and finally he feels every second of clinging to the mirror frame in his hands and his arms and shoulders and core and _holy fuck, how did he_ do _that_. And he’s tired, he feels the exhaustion again, and this time he isn’t able to fight it down like the thousands of times he’d had to in the Seam.

Quentin passes out.

\---

“Julia, you never said he was so damn _heavy!_ ” Margo exclaims, hauling Q up by his armpits. After the initial rush of adrenaline from finding Q and his subsequent blackout, the four of them had quickly realized that they still had to get him out somehow. So Margo agreed to carry his upper body and Julia hauled up his feet, with Alice and Kady ready to annihilate anything that comes within shooting distance with… something. Their fists, probably. Or Kady’s knife. Because of course, Kady has a knife, and even insisted on giving one to Julia, too. 

Their mirror portal back to reality isn’t far, luckily, meaning that they don’t have to drag Quentin for too long. Margo complains the whole way. Alice whips around at the slightest noise. Julia keeps her gaze on Quentin’s pale face, his frosted-over clothes, and tries to keep herself from breaking down in sheer worry. Kady keeps them moving, quickly and quietly, through the hostile terrain.

Julia has never in her entire life loved something more than the sight of Josh and Penny standing at the portal.

“You got him!” Josh exclaims. “Holy shit, is he alive?”

“We think so,” Alice says, her voice tight. “Let’s get the hell out of here and then we can make sure.”

“Leave? But why would you ever want to leave?” comes a voice from behind them.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Margo groans.

It’s a Shard, because of course they’re having shit luck today. Kady begins to pull together a spell but Josh yells and she immediately stops, cursing, instead drawing her small knife from her belt. Alice raises her fists as if to fight with her hands. Thinking quickly, Julia drops Quentin’s feet and draws her knife.

“Go, go go!” she yells, pointing Alice towards Penny as she and Kady take point against the Shard. It starts to rush them and they brandish their weapons, looking fierce, hoping and hoping that they aren’t about to die. 

“Get his feet, Alice!” Margo yells, and there’s scuffling behind them. Kady slashes with her knife and the Shard doubles over, hurting, and Julia takes the opportunity to get a stab in as well. 

“Josh, give me a hand,” Alice says, trying her hardest to help get Quentin through the portal. Margo is through with Quentin’s upper half, but his leg keeps catching on the outside and Alice can’t manage both on her own. Josh helps shove him unceremoniously through the portal and then gives Alice a push, following her quickly. 

“Come on, guys, let’s go!” Penny says, but Julia and Kady are still busy with the Shard. Each strike makes a crackling sound as they hit its body. It seems to be a stranger, someone who stumbled in and couldn’t make their way out. _Maybe it’s trapped_ , Julia thinks as she goes after him again with the knife. _Maybe we’re doing it a favor_. Kady slashes its neck somewhere and there’s a screeching, grating sound like glass on glass.

“Go through the portal!” Penny yells. “Right fucking now!” With one last glance at the Shard, Kady deems him incapacitated and grabs Julia by the elbow. They dive through the portal and are quickly followed by Penny, landing on top of them in a heap. They’re all out of breath. Julia feels something damp on her back and realises it’s Penny’s blood.

“Shit, Penny, let’s get you taken care of,” she says, wriggling out from the bottom of the pile. She looks around for the first aid kit they made sure to have on hand for this specific reason. It’s nowhere in sight. “Eliot, what happened to the first aid kit?”

Her eyes finally land on him. He’s hovered above Quentin, slowly dripping tears onto the floor, shaking him by the shoulders. Alice sits next to him, but back on her heels. Julia moves over towards them.

“Is he okay?” she asks. 

Alice looks up, eyes about to overflow.

“He’s not waking up.”


	9. Eliot’s Least Favorite Week™

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes! Sorry I missed the update yesterday. Summer right now is looking a little wacky for me so I'm going to have to play it by ear. I might not have my laptop with me for a big part of the summer, which will mean that I won't be able to update as much (because much as I love this fic I really don't want to write whole chapters on my phone), but I promise no matter how long it takes that it won't be abandoned.

Eliot thought maybe it would be better once Quentin was out. He thought everything would be fine. He _thought_ he’d get to stop worrying all the damn time and finally be able to focus on getting his shit back together.

He was really, really wrong.

Quentin doesn’t wake up once they get him out of the Mirror Dimension. He doesn’t wake up when Eliot spends fifteen entire minutes shaking him, slapping him, and crying like a baby over his prone body. He doesn’t wake up when Dean Fogg walks in and starts yelling. He doesn’t wake up when they stick needles in his arm in the medical wing. He doesn’t wake up when Zelda comes, or when Dean Fogg yells _again_ , or when Eliot soaks his shirt through, or when Julia talks to him for over an hour, or when Alice makes herds of little glass horses dance around his feet on the hospital bed.

He just sleeps. 

That’s what Lipson says, anyway. He’s just sleeping. The IV in his arm keeps him hydrated. The nurses that check his vitals every hour, on the hour are just doing routine checks.

There’s nothing wrong. He’ll wake up eventually.

Margo came through the mirror portal dragging Quentin’s cold, limp body three days ago. He’s still sleeping. 

Eliot hasn’t slept at all.

They did it on a Friday afternoon, and it’s Monday today. He barely moved from Quentin’s bedside for the entire weekend, no matter how much Margo complained to him or lectured that he needed to get up and do something. No matter how many times Julia gently suggested he go back to the cottage. No matter how many times Alice gave him a slightly funny look.

He can’t go. He just can’t.

“El, it’s six in the morning. You gotta at least eat breakfast before classes start.” Margo’s voice is surprisingly gentle, but it startles him nonetheless. 

“I’m not going to class.” His voice is dull. Empty. 

“Yes, you are. You need to get out of here.”

“I’m not going, Bambi, and you can’t make me,” he says, turning to face her. He does not sound nearly as steely or determined as he had hoped. He sounds weak. That’s all.

“Yes, I can, and I’m going to,” she tells him, moving closer. Morning light illuminates her like an angel. “It doesn’t matter how cute he is. You aren’t failing school to watch him sleep.” She places a gentle hand on the back of his neck. 

“What if he wakes up? And I’m not here?” There’s a quaver in Eliot’s voice he wishes wasn’t there. His eyes sting. He hates his tear ducts for it.

“Then you’ll come running back as soon as you can and he’ll love you all the more for it, or whatever. Listen, you’ve eaten nothing but pretzels and Jell-O for the last three days. We’re feeding you a decent breakfast and going to class. End of discussion.” Her hand slides down to his arm and she hauls him away before he can form a coherent argument or resist. He holds on to the sight of Quentin’s bed for as long as he can before it disappears from view. On the way out the door, Margo asks Lipson to contact them if Quentin wakes up. She says she will. Eliot leaves without a fight.

Margo was right. Real food is good.

“You were right,” Eliot tells her. “Real food is good.” Crumbs of scone fall out of his mouth. “Where did you even get these?”

“A magician never reveals her secrets,” Margo says with a coy grin. “Try the omelette.” Josh comes into the common area with flour in his hair. Margo frowns.

“Glad you like the scones, Eliot,” Josh says with a grin. “Margo, I just made a… well, I don’t know, really. Try it for me, I think it’s pretty interesting.” Margo rolls her eyes. 

“Be right back,” she says, and follows Josh into the kitchen. The room goes quiet and Eliot tries the omelette. It’s good. _If Bambi made this, I’ve been missing out,_ he thinks. 

He somehow manages to make it through the day of classes, and though Quentin is constantly present in the back of his head he feels significantly better than he did over the weekend. Eliot pops into the medical wing during a break to see him, unsure why there’s a butterfly anxiously beating its wings in his chest, and even less sure why he feels so disappointed when Quentin is still asleep. 

He doesn’t have quite enough time to sit down on the bed and talk to Quentin, so he leaves and goes back to class. It’s harder to concentrate, though. The spells don’t come as easily to his fingertips. One of his professors snaps at him and he wants to snap back but can’t come up with the right words. Margo guides him around with pushes and pokes, keeping him moving.

“So?” she asks him at the end of the day. “Better, right?” Eliot rolls his eyes. They’re cashed out on some couches with the cottage to themselves for the moment.

“Yes,” he says, voice laden with sarcasm. “Much better.” She sighs. “Really,” he says with a lighter tone. “Better.”

“So we’re not going to spend any more time moping over Q’s bedside, right?” she asks. “We’re gonna keep moving and get our shit together, right?”

“Yeah, okay,” he says quietly.

“Look, El, I know you’re worried. I am too, we all are. But there is literally nothing we could do that could help him more than some good old fashioned time on the ward.” She says the last bit with a falsely cheery grin. “He’s in good hands. He’ll recover eventually, I swear.”

“I know, Bambi.” Eliot leans his head back and stares at the ceiling. “It’s hard.” There’s a moment of silence. “And my fucking stomach is still a pain in the ass.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Margo says sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to hit you quite so hard.”

“You did what you had to,” Eliot says, “but maybe you didn’t have to do it with quite so much _vigor_.” Margo laughs and the sound makes him smile.

Eliot sleeps that night, and Margo swears up and down in the morning that she didn’t put any kind of magic on him. Alice does not. Alice looks suspicious. Eliot would not put it past Margo to convince Alice to cast some kind of nighty-night spell on him. He’s not mad. He pays Quentin a visit after trying another of Josh’s culinary creations (this one with some added sparkle from Margo, who Josh is somehow teaching to cook). He’s not the only visitor.

“Hi, Alice,” Eliot says as he arrives. “How’s he doing?”

“Exactly the same,” she tells him. “What’re you doing here?”

“Just… paying a visit, same as you,” he says cautiously. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m not going to pretend not to notice how you look at him,” Alice says, something resigned hiding in her voice. “Or how much time you spend with him. It’s just─” She pauses and looks up. “Is there something going on with you two? Did I miss something?” Eliot laughs. Then regrets it.

_How does one put this? “I spent fifty years with your boyfriend in an alternate timeline, except he wasn’t really your boyfriend back then, but he is now, and I fell in love with him and then I fucked up, I really fucked up, and I still love him and I don’t think I’ll ever love someone like him ever again.” How exactly…_

“There was an alternate timeline that we lived in for fifty-some years. Trying to find the Time key, way back when. We… or at least, _I_ kind of...” Eliot trails off. Alice lets out a soft sort of oh sound. “Well.”

“He didn’t tell me about that,” Alice says.

Eliot nods and swallows. The ward is empty and quiet and soft light is still gleaming in through the big glass windows.

“Let’s just wait until he wakes up,” Alice says. “Here.” She scoots over on the bench so that Eliot can sit down next to her. He does. They wait and watch Quentin’s chest rise and fall until Lipson kicks them out and tells them to get to class.

Most of the week passes like this, and Eliot is painfully aware of every second of it. Every waking moment is torture. He just wants to talk to Quentin. There’s so much to say. _So much lost time_. He drinks, then doesn’t, moves between erratic hyperactivity and an inability to lift even a single limb. Margo makes him help her with her school work. Josh ropes him into baking projects. Penny and Julia and Kady all help out, trying to keep him to a normal schedule. He feels like he’s being watched. He can’t really bring himself to care.

On Thursday afternoon, his last class of the day, a woman wearing a badge with the medical logo walks in and hands his professor a note.

“Eliot and Penny, would you step out for a minute? This young lady has some news for you,” he says.

Eliot is out the door and down the hall before he’s finished speaking.


	10. Thursday Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boy is back :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah! Sorry I missed the update yesterday, I just barely caught it before I went to sleep. I hope you guys are enjoying the longer chapters so far!
> 
> Unfortunately, with the good news of Quentin waking up I have a little bit of bad news for you. I'm not going to have access to a computer for the next four weeks and it's far too much of a hassle for me to try and write and upload new chapters all from my phone (we'll see about the uploading bit, but writing is out of the question) so I'm going to be on hiatus until about the 17th of July. I'm super super sorry about this but I promise I'm not abandoning this baby I just don't have the means to keep posting at the moment. I'll see you in a while, hang in there <3

Quentin wakes up to an empty room. The clock on the wall says 4:47 pm. It’s Thursday, which is very confusing. He’s not exactly sure what day it was when they tossed in the flasks, but maybe it was a Tuesday. Or a Wednesday. Which means he was only in the seam for a little while. He’s not quite sure why he’s in the medical ward right now, but it’s not a terrible place to be, so he’s not mad. He starts to close his eyes again, not to sleep (he feels groggy, but terribly well rested) but just because it’s simpler than trying to take in his surroundings, but he gets interrupted before he can.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Coldwater,” says a voice from his left. It’s Professor Lipson. “Glad to see you’re finally awake. He rolls over a little to see her. She turns away for a second and calls someone down the hall. “Anya, would you let Ms. Hanson and her friends know?”

“How long have I been asleep for?” Quentin asks. “It can’t have been that long, can it?”

“Depends on your definition of ‘that long,’” Lipson says. “You were out for just under a week.”

“No, that can’t be right,” he says, eyes wide. “When did I get here?”

“Last Friday,” Lipson tells him. Quentin rolls onto his back, staring disbelievingly at the ceiling.

“But─ why? That doesn’t make any sense!” His hands start fidgeting in his lap.

“We think your body went into shock because of how long it was in the Seam,” Lipson tells him. “It needed a… recalibration period, of sorts. To recharge and readjust.”

“And we─ the flasks, they─ Wednesday?” Lipson nods. _Well_ , he thinks, _maybe my perception of time isn’t that bad_. He’d thought maybe time passed a little slower in the Seam.

“That was a very brave thing you did, stalling for your friends. Everett was a dangerous man, from what I’ve heard. Stupid, maybe, but brave.”

“Where are they?” Quentin asks, trying to sit up. Lipson moves over to him to raise up the mattress a little and pushes him back into it.

“They should be coming soon,” she says. “Don’t try to get up yet, your balance will probably be terrible for at least a little while. Are you hungry?”

“No, not really─ you’ll let them in, right?”

“Of course. There’s no one else in here for them to disturb, for one.” She smiles. “I’ll get you some food anyway. You’ll be hungry eventually. And it would be good to get you back to regular water soon,” she muses. “You’ll need to be back in classes on Monday at the latest. Tomorrow would probably be too much of a strain.”

Just then Margo wanders in, followed closely by Julia. 

“Hey, Q! How’re you feeling?” Julia says, bear-hugging him and giving his forehead an affectionate kiss. “I’m revoking your stupidity license,” she whispers in his ear. “You try something like that again and you’ll never be out of my sight.” Quentin smiles. Lipson leaves just as Josh arrives.

“You dumb bitch,” Margo says, giving him a tight squeeze. “We were worried.”

Josh pulls him into a hug that’s _almost_ awkward but is too heartfelt to be _actually_ awkward. And then Eliot slides into the room off of a dead sprint and Quentin ceases to care about anything else.

If it wasn’t so cheesy, Quentin would say that the whole world fell away until it was just them two. Millions of thoughts flurry in his head, little things he’s wanted to tell Eliot, the hundreds of curses he could let fly for terrifying him for months, every term of endearment under the sun, _I think I’m overthinking it, are you overthinking this, can we overthink together_ ─ confessions, tens of thousands of them, _please won’t you tell me that you feel this way too_. Eliot’s face has this funny sort of smile on it. He’s a mess, and Quentin has never seen someone more beautiful in his life.

Then Alice comes in behind him and, well, he’d be a liar if he said that he didn’t scream just a little in his head. _Yikes. That’ll be a whole discussion._

But he lets go of that thought and it slips from his mind with shocking ease as the two walk over. He doesn’t know what Eliot says, but there’s an edge in his voice that Quentin latches onto. Alice kisses him and he’s not quite sure how to feel. Penny and Kady finally walk in and somehow there are eight people sitting or lying on a hospital bed all together. 

Kady eats his snacks, Josh keeps making everyone laugh at terrible jokes and promises him a seven-course meal once he’s out, Julia French braids his hair (“Why?” “I missed hearing you complain all the time.”), Penny starts giving him the low-down on the incredible amount of work he missed, Alice promises to help him, Margo says that his presence is expected at a party on Saturday so he had best get better quickly, and Eliot just… sits. Watches. Puts in a few words edgewise but doesn’t contribute a whole lot to the conversation. Honestly, Quentin’s fine with it.

Being apart for so long makes the together bit so much simpler.

_For the record_ , Quentin thinks, _best Thursday afternoon in living memory._

Slowly, everyone filters out except for Julia. When they’re all gone he lets out a sigh.

“So, a week, huh?” he asks.

“Depression naps ain’t got nothin’ on you, Q,” Julia says. He chuckles. “Wanna eat?”

“Is there anything left? I kinda thought Kady ate it all.” It’s Julia’s turn to laugh.

“Not quite. You got some pretzels, a little Jell-O, some crackers and cheese, and a lot of crumbs,” she says, holding up the tray. “She left _some_ for you.” Quentin grabs a pretzel. “Don’t eat too fast, though, you’ll throw it right back up.”

They sit in silence for a while, bickering like siblings when Julia tries to steal the last of the Jell-O.

“That’s mine!”

“You’re not eating it.”

“It’s on my tray, it’s my Jell-O, let me eat my goddamn Jell-O.”

“No. I want some.”

“Julia!”

“Quentin!”

“You’re horrible. Take it.”

“Yay.” 

The sunlight warms to a rich golden yellow as it dims outside. 

“So,” Julia says as she slurps the last of the Jell-O from the bowl. “Are you… okay?”

“Lame question,” Quentin says, eating a cracker.

“It still stands,” Julia says. “You were hanging off a mirror frame by your fingertips for, what, forty-eight hours? With no food, no water─ nothing. We were almost out of our minds. I can’t imagine…” Quentin sighs.

“It wasn’t great, Jules, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says with an edge of sarcasm. “It was cold and scary and I was really, really tired. I’d rather not do it ever again. But I’m here, right? Can we just roll with that for a minute?”

“Sure.” The conversation pauses for a moment.

“I didn’t let go,” Quentin says quietly.

“I know.”

“I thought about it once or twice.” Julia looks at him. “Funny thing was, I couldn’t move. Like, I was frozen in place. I couldn’t let go.” He pauses. “Besides, I wouldn’t do it like that,” he mumbles.

“Q…” Julia says. 

“Just because I’m better doesn’t mean I’m all the way there, all the time,” Quentin tells her, somehow managing to make eye contact.

“I know, Q, just… you have to talk to us. You’re important. We love you. We will literally search entire dimensions for you.”

“I know you would.”

“We just did.”

“Well, not an _entire_ dimension…”

“Watch it, mister.”

“Watching!”


	11. Alice Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice and Margo have a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello you lovely humans! I'm back. Hopefully for good. I'm not actually sure what my update schedule was (I think it was Fridays? Who knows) but chances are it's gonna be a little sketch for a while until some things flatten out. Thanks for sticking around. This update is a little shorter, but I'm trying to put some heat on in the writing department so I might have another update coming at you pretty soon. Enjoy the chapter and I'll see you guys soon!

Quentin goes back to the cottage after he proves that he can walk in a straight line for fifteen feet, keep down food and water, and stand quickly without passing out. It’s a Sunday evening. He says hello to everyone and goes up to his room with the excuse that he needs to start catching up. He looks tired.

Alice isn’t quite sure how to feel.

There are a lot of things to… process.

_Fifty years?!_ Fifty _years_. And Quentin hadn’t even said a word. She knew that he’d spent time there, but… _fifty years_. That was a long time. She can’t help but think about all the stuff that must have changed for him. He spent a lifetime there. Or, a lot of one, at least, and that’s got to change someone. 

_I should talk to him,_ she thinks. _For a lot of reasons._

But it’s hard. It’s hard to stop loving someone, especially someone as good as Quentin. 

She’s lying in bed, on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling. The Cottage is quiet for a Saturday night. Sure, there’s talking, and music coming from somewhere outside, but it all feels muted and quiet and far away.

_It might make things easier. If I cut some ties at Brakebills I could spend more time at the Library. The Theory work would come a lot quicker. I could do more, learn more, all that._

_Is that what I really want?_ She sits up on the bed. There’s a small clock on the wall and it reads 12:39 AM, a reasonable time for a cup of tea.

Alice creeps down the stairs with all the stealth of a mouse, trying not to wake anyone who might be sleeping with the amazingly loud creaks and groans the staircase sometimes lets out. She digs around in a cupboard for a mug and a teabag (chamomile) before filling the mug with water and quickly heating it with a simple spell. In goes the tea and she’s immediately enveloped in a cloud of the sleepy fragrance. She has to look to find it, but there’s a little sugar hiding away as well. She’s always been a sucker for a little sweetness. 

She finds a cozy spot to curl up in the common room and grabs a blanket for a little extra warmth before taking a sip of the tea. It’s just barely too hot and leaves a blazing trail down her throat and into her stomach: perfect.

“Where’d you get that?” comes Margo’s voice from behind her. Alice doesn’t have the energy to be surprised. 

“There’s tea in the cupboard if you look hard enough,” she says.

“Huh,” Margo grins. “Who woulda thought. What’re you doing up? Aren’t there exams in… three classes this week?”

“Yeah,” Alice says. “Got some other stuff on my mind, though.” She leans back into the chair.

“Wanna vent?” Margo asks. Alice sighs. “You totally don’t have to, I’m not prying.”

“Shocker,” Alice says dryly. Margo laughs. “I do, though,” she tells Margo, looking up at the older girl. A smile blooms across Margo’s face, and Alice can tell it’s genuine.

“Go for it, girl.” 

Alice smiles.

“I don’t know what to do about Q,” she starts. Then she pauses. “No, not exactly. I… well, I have a feeling of what I _should_ do, but… ugh. Everything just got so complicated.”

“What do you mean?”

“When they went looking for the time key, Quentin and Eliot had to spend upwards of fifty years living there. They were stuck with the Mosaic, which is supposed to be impossible or near-impossible to solve. They spent, like, a whole lifetime there.”

“Oh, El told me about that. Or… wrote to me. It was complicated. He seemed pretty torn up about it.”

“He and Q.”

“Yeah. I figured.”

“And they seem like they’re…” Alice trails off.

Margo sighs. “I don’t know, Alice, that’s a sticky one. Do you really want my advice?” Alice sighs and looks at her sideways before nodding. 

“If he can’t give you 100%, relationship-wise, you gotta let it go. Maybe you could accuse me of wanting El to be happy, and maybe you’d be right. But you deserve someone who isn’t going to be hung up on someone else all the time. You two are cute together, don’t get me wrong. But you should be able to… I don’t know. Do your own thing. Try something new.” Margo laughs. “Take it from someone with experience, dating someone whose heart isn’t all the way in it sucks all kinds of ass.” Alice giggles. They sit in silence for a while as Margo’s words filter around the room.

“I should talk to him, shouldn’t I.”

“You should.”

“Maybe tomorrow morning, though.”

“Sure. Hey, could you show me where you got that tea from? Giving advice makes mama thirsty.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something... strange happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a fun one for you guys today >:) Quentin might be out of the Seam, but we aren't out of the woods just yet. I've been having some pretty impressive writer's block lately and this has been a little wonky to write, but I'm trying my best to stay a little ahead of the uploads. I'll be back next week with another update. Enjoy!

The next morning comes in a slow sunrise that curls golden fingers into all the rooms of the Physical Cottage at the lovely hour of 6:02 AM. Somehow the five hours of sleep Alice got feel worse than getting none at all. She drags herself upright, knowing that she won’t be able to fall back asleep with the bright dawn light leaking in around her blinds. Besides, she has a class first thing in the morning, and some homework she abandoned “for later” which is now due in just a few hours. 

Alice pulls on a sweater that was just cleaned two days ago and somehow already smells like an electric fire (everything else is drying on a line outside) and a pair of pants that look reasonable with it. She’s never bothered too much with her appearance. Sure, she has a style, but everyone does, and a lot of the time she has to dress for function rather than fashion. Grabbing a bowl of cereal from the kitchen, she picks up her books from where they were left haphazard on a table last night with a simple spell and organizes them so she can work more efficiently. 

Spellwork has always come easily to Alice. Sure, some of the higher-level, more complex spells have given her pause, but as a general rule her practical classes all go smoothly. It’s not a question of effort, but one of getting the required results and bringing them to class. Theory, however, is where it gets interesting for Alice.

As she works skeins of magic between her fingers, bending and twisting it into shapes to make it do what she wants, she lets her mind wander to her _real_ project, her brainchild: The Unified Theory of Magic. Alice isn’t a fool, she knows that generations of magicians have tried and failed to produce such a thing, but none of them have had the experiences she has. None of them became niffins. None of them were _Alice_. Is it maybe a little narcissistic to think that being her is the key? Maybe. Is it also quite possibly true? Most definitely.

The main problem with the Unified Theory is that there’s _so much to unify_. The world of magic is absolutely massive, with hundreds of different applications and methods and uses. It’s not so much a river as a slew of small creeks intertwining and crossing paths. It’s frustrating, too: sometimes Alice tosses and turns over the problems at night, feeling like she can’t see the forest for the trees and annoyed with her own blindness. 

Slowly but surely, she’s made progress. The best way to find how something works, she found, was to first determine what it can and cannot do. It’s a lot of research, and sometimes the volume of information she consumes makes her head swim, but the point of light on the horizon that is a completed Theory makes her push forward. It is, at times, not the most exciting work, but if all she has to sacrifice for science is a few months (or years, to be honest) of boredom, she’ll count herself lucky.

At 7:30, more people start coming down the stairs from their bedrooms. First Penny, who makes coffee and proceeds to drink it like water, and then Margo, who gives Alice a smile as she breezes out the front door.

Then Quentin comes downstairs, and Alice remembers fully what Margo had talked to her about last night. She gives a little huff, stacks her books back up properly and gently puts the little automaton she’d been bringing to life to sleep. She knows what she needs to say. She knows what needs to happen. Then Q trips and falls down the last three stairs and grunts as his shoulder hits the floor. 

“Jesus, Q, are you okay?” she asks, standing quickly and moving to his side. He doesn’t answer and lies boneless on the ground, breath wheezing in and out of his lungs with more effort than seems necessary. “Q?”

She casts a quick detection spell and looks over his body for any curses or magical parasites that could have frozen him. There’s a dark gray-blue shadow at the back of his head, but it doesn’t look magical. She files the image away for research.

“Q, can you hear me?” She shakes his shoulder back and forth, looking for a response. His eyes flicker back and forth, eventually landing on her face. 

“Can you blink?” she asks, slightly relieved by the movement. Quentin blinks a few times. 

“Okay,” she says. “Once for yes, twice for no.” He blinks. 

“Can you move?” Two. 

“Talk?” Two again. 

“Do you know what’s happening?” He rolls his eyes. “Okay, maybe. Does it feel like it’s wearing off?” He looks at her, slightly frustrated. “Right. Has anything like this happened before?” He thinks for a second, his eyes darting from side to side. One blink. 

“Oh.” _Interesting_ , Alice thinks. She’d need to talk to him as soon as he was out of it. Assuming… assuming he came out of it. “Should I get you to the medical ward?” By this point a few people have gathered around, Julia and Penny included. Quentin blinks twice.

“Think again, buster,” Julia says, and looks Alice dead in the eyes. “Give me a hand here, we’re taking him. Something doesn’t add up.” Quentin huffs loudly but can’t move to stop them.

Lipson groans when she sees them come in, hands frozen in a sustained levitation spell to keep Quentin off the ground.

“What’s he done this time?”

“Nothing, actually. Well, we’re not sure. I saw him trip and fall down the stairs and then he was just kind of frozen like this,” Alice says, guiding Quentin into the ward as Lipson directs them.

“Did he hit his head or neck in any way?” Lipson asks.

“No, he landed on his shoulder.”

“And is he lucid?”

“Yes.” Alice looks at Julia and they gently place Quentin on the bed Lipson indicates, breaking the spell once he’s set down.

“Well, that’s a start.”

“He can move his eyes and breathe, but that’s about it.”

“Even better!” exclaims Lipson with just a hint of sarcasm. “Mr. Coldwater, I just let you out.” Quentin gives her a look. _I didn’t ask for this to happen_ , he’d say.

“I checked him over for curses, parasites, all of that, and it came up clean,” Alice reports. “Except… there was this strange shadow, at the back of his head. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Well, you also aren't a seasoned doctor,” says Lipson. She casts the same spell Alice did earlier, and lets out a soft _huh_ when she sees the shadow. “I’ll have to second you on that one, Alice,” she says, resigned. “This is certainly new.” She pauses for a minute. “I’ll keep him until he comes out of it, and then let him go. If anything like this happens again, bring him back and give me a full report. I’m going to do some research. Until we figure out what this is, we won’t be able to do much about it.”

“I could help with the research part,” Alice says.

“Go for it,” Lipson says tiredly. “If you find anything, let me know. I’ll keep Mr. Coldwater alive. Go to class.”

“Thank you, professor,” Julia says as they leave. 

Alice’s mind turns the shadow over and over while she’s in class. She runs through every magical residue and signature and entity she knows, trying to think if it could have anything to do with one of them. She feels like she already knows the solution, that it’s hidden away somewhere and she just has to work to find it. 

But for one of the first times in her life, Alice is coming up blank.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some clarity is acquired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes! So sorry, I totally missed uploading yesterday. I may or may not end up going on another hiatus (only two weeks this time), starting next week, but that is not yet set in stone. If it ends up happening, I'll miss the next two Fridays before getting back on it. If it doesn't, I'll see you next week. Enjoy!

When Eliot wakes up on Monday morning, there’s a commotion downstairs. _It’s eight in the morning,_ he thinks, _and Margo and I aren’t even downstairs yet. What the fuck is all the noise about?_

He knots the tie of his frankly ostentatious bathrobe around his waist, checking to make sure that it covers his sleep clothes before opening the door and walking down the stairs. The sight that greets him is familiar and sends him reeling from the strange comfort it provides. 

The full force of the Key Quest squad (or… whatever they’re called) has formed in the common area of the Cottage. They’ve completely taken over the coffee table and are arguing over a plate of muffins and hard-boiled eggs.

“Look, I’m not saying it’s the monster, but it might be the monster,” Penny says before cramming half a pumpkin muffin in his mouth.

“But it wasn’t the same consistency!” argues Alice. “And besides, it’s not like he’s been acting like some homicidal, inhuman, godlike creature all the time.”

“Alice, you said it was blue, right?” asks Julia.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the Mirror Dimension. It’s kinda blue in there, right?”

“That… that’s some interesting logic right there,” teases Kady.

“What if it’s something to do with the Beast?” asks Josh.

“He got blown up, Josh,” says Alice. “There’s no way to come back from what we did to him.”

“Just spitballin’,” he says, hands up.

“What’s going on?” asks Eliot, one hand on the ballister.

“Quentin got paralyzed,” says Penny, deadpan.

“Penny,” Julia reprimands.

“It’s true!” Penny throws his hands up.

“Sorry, sorry, _what the fuck?_ ” asks Eliot again.

“He went ass-over-teakettle down the stairs and Alice and Julia had to haul his ass to the medical ward because he couldn’t move,” says Margo. “And according to Alice, there’s something weird in his head.”

“Is he…” Eliot drops off.

“He’ll be fine,” say three separate voices.

“It’s just a temporary thing,” Julia tells him.

“We’re going to do some research, but he might have information that could help,” says Alice.

“He’s Quentin,” Margo shrugs. “When has he ever not pulled through?”

The plate of food slowly disappears over the next half hour as they pass ideas back and forth, rapidfire. The concepts range from screwed-up spell residue to magical mind leeches to curses from various gods Quentin had managed to piss off (in even the smallest of ways). However, by 8:45, people have to start heading to class, so the discussion breaks off with the promise of more later. 

Eliot goes to class distracted by Quentin’s well-being for the umpteenth time. By the time lunch rolls around and students have an hour and a half of free time, Eliot is worn out from worrying. He goes back to the cottage, hoping to find Q.

He opens the door slowly, and finds that his prayers have been answered.

There he is: sitting in the window seat, poring over six different texts, hair falling around his face where it’s made its way out of the knot at the nape of his neck. He shuffles some papers around before popping off a quick spell that makes a small copper mechanism a few inches above his lap begin to tick.

“Hah,” he says quietly. “Got you.” Eliot’s heart overflows.

“Whatcha got there, Q?” he asks, and finds that his throat feels clogged. Quentin starts slightly and turns.

“Eliot,” he says, dropping the mechanism back into his lap. A little smile curls into the corners of his mouth. “Uh, hi.” Eliot rolls his eyes comically, even as he feels them prickling.

“Look,” he says softly. “We have to talk.” Quentin’s face sobers up, his eyebrows coming together. He _almost_ starts making the puppy dog eyes that will have Eliot bending over backwards to his every whim, but stops just shy. Eliot retains his mental faculties.

“Sure,” says Quentin. “What’s up?”

_“What’s up”_ , snipes Eliot to himself. _“What’s up” like he doesn’t know… anything. About either of us._ He feels the words forming on the back of his tongue. _I’m in love with you. Please say you are too. I love you so much._ He feels them, and he tries to coax them forward into the air.

But then he falters. He stops short. The letters won’t move past his teeth.

“Are you going to paralyze every time you come down the front stairs? Because we can work out a cushioning spell or something for you, so you don’t bruise the shit out of your shoulder.” It feels like tar coming out of his mouth and he hates the bluff as it sits in the air between them. Does he imagine it, or does something twitch on Quentin’s face before he laughs? Did he really just fuck this up again?

“Nah, hopefully a one-time thing,” Quentin says easily. _Fuck._

“Good,” Eliot says. “C’mere.” He wraps Quentin in a hug. They still fit together maddeningly well. 

_This wasn’t how this was supposed to go,_ Eliot thinks. _I broke out of my own head for this. I waited for this. I made up my mind about this._

“What else did I miss?” Quentin asks once Eliot lets him go (which he does with reluctance).

“Not much,” Eliot tells him, making his way to the window seat where Quentin had been sitting. “We didn’t have much energy to spare for social events. Everyone was busy worrying. You did miss school, though. It’s gonna be a bitch to catch up to.”

“I know,” says Quentin. “I’m doing my best.”

“And what more could we possibly ask?” says Eliot with a smile. “What’s this?” He gestures to the mess of gears and springs and wires Quentin had been messing with when he came in.

“Oh! Well, it’s a Minor Mendings thing,” he says. “I’m supposed to get it to… work again, I guess. It’s a little extra hard because it’s missing a few parts and I don’t really know what it’s supposed to do, but it keeps getting clearer the more that I do. It’s like… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like it _wants_ me to put it together, and make it work, almost like it’s… helping me? Does that make sense?”

“Sure, Q,” Eliot smiles. Quentin had worked his hands up into his hair while he’d been talking, the way he does when he’s thinking hard. Eliot gives himself the luxury getting misty-eyed over him. Just a little. Just for a second. “I’ll… leave you to it?”

“Look who’s back on his feet,” Margo says with a grin, coming in from the porch laden with paper bags. “I brought lunch.” Someone sneezes outside. “And the rest of us, who were supposed to be acting like they weren’t all there and come in slowly,” she half-yells.

Everyone comes in in a single mass of grinning faces.

“Glad you aren’t dead yet,” Penny offers, already reaching into one of the bags, looking for food. “Margo, where’d you get all this?”

“Deli,” she says. Penny gives up searching and takes the whole bag, unloading it onto a coffee table. Kady takes another, and Julia reaches for the third.

“So, Quentin,” Alice says. “You said that you felt like the whole… paralysis thing was familiar?”

“Cutting right to the chase,” Kady teases.

Alice rolls her eyes. “We have to fix it as soon as possible,” she says. “It could get worse.” All eyes are on Quentin.

“Well,” he says, fiddling with the copper mechanism in his lap. “It kind of felt like the Seam.”


	14. Definitely Not Overthinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin is _fine_. Definitely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hachi machi I'm so sorry about that. I just started up school again and everything has been super chaotic for the past few weeks and I absolutely forgot about this fic until just now. Hopefully I'll be able to keep to the schedule but I make no promises because everything is kind of a mess right now.
> 
> Also I've been having massive writer's block with this thing lately? It's super frustrating. I promise I'm going to see this through to the end, it just might be a little shorter than I originally anticipated. I've noticed in the past that finishing big projects is kinda difficult for me, so I want to finish this one just to prove that I can. I still don't know exactly when the end is going to be but I'll let you guys know when that starts to solidify. 
> 
> Again I'm going to try my best to stick to the weekly schedule but it might start to get a little longer between updates. Sorry about that. Enjoy this chapter and I'll see y'all in the next one.

“Wait, what?” come a chorus of voices around Quentin. 

“Oh, I totally thought it was the Beast,” says Josh.

Julia passes him a sandwich as she sits next to him on the floor. “Like… how?” she asks.

“I dunno, I haven’t been paralyzed many times in my life,” Quentin says sarcastically, unwrapping his sandwich. “But it was the same kind of feeling. I could move my eyes and blink, and I could still feel everything, but if I tried to move the muscles wouldn’t respond. Maybe that’s just what regular paralysis feels like.”

“Well, maybe,” Alice says. “But there’s…” she trails off.

“There’s some kind of substance stuck to you, Q,” Julia says. “Like a… like a residue, sort of.” Quentin nearly drops his sandwich. 

“So, assuming this is still the Seam, it, like, rubbed off on me?” he asks.

“I guess?” says Alice. “It’s the best explanation we’ve had so far.”

“Hey, I was kind of close,” Julia says. “I said it had something to do with the Mirror Dimension.”

“I’m not sure you get credit for that one, Wicker,” teases Penny.

“Regardless,” says Alice, hands fiddling with a scrap of paper in her lap, “We have no idea how to get it _off_ of you, Q.”

“I mean, couldn’t you… pull it out? That’s a thing, right?” he asks, feeling a shred of anxiety worm its way into his skull. “And what happens if it doesn’t come out?”

“Nobody knows,” says Alice quietly. The room goes silent. “It could get better or it could get worse.”

Then: “Fuck this,” Penny almost shouts, throwing down the crumpled paper that had covered his sandwich. “We beat the bad guy. We beat _the_ bad guy. We should be done with this shit.”

“Penny…” Julia starts.

“No! Look, every time something happens, it’s on us. I know I’m new─ well, sort of─ but this is _exhausting_. Don’t you ever get tired? Why can’t someone else take care of the life-threatening shit for once?”

Nobody really has anything to say to that. A voice in Quentin’s head starts telling him he’s a burden, and he shoves it down violently, knowing he’ll have to deal with it later.

“We do get shit done,” says Margo. Penny sighs.

“Look, we are going to ask for help on this one,” Julia says. “It’s not like it’s a quest or a destiny that’s been handed straight to us.”

“We do need to work fast, though,” Alice says. “We don’t know what kind of effect this is having on Quentin.”

“I feel like if this came from the Seam, we should go back, right?” Kady says. Penny groans. “Look, I’m sure there’s some way to establish a more permanent portal arrangement that doesn’t involve near-fatal blood loss.”

“I’ll have to look into that,” Alice says. She sounds grateful to have something to do, a purpose for her searching.

“I’m gonna go upstairs,” Quentin says. “I don’t have class for a few hours and I need a nap.” He feels concerned eyes on his back as he stands and starts walking upstairs. “Thank you guys, really, I appreciate it, it’s just… a lot,” he tells his friends, hoping they believe him.

He flops onto his bed and throws a pillow over his head, breathing deeply. His head is spinning with noise, thoughts going around like a carousel: _what if it won’t come out-what if someone dies-such a burden-all your fault-should have let go-what if it’s stuck-what if_ … Over and over. It’s not quite a panic attack, he knows that. Those are different. But all the new information, and the threat of a new _quest_ (like they need another one of those), has put his head in a tailspin. He sighs, staring at the bookshelf next to his bed, tracing the spines over and willing the thoughts to go away. It’s a trick he learned a while ago. Feeling overwhelmed is fixable, as long as he can stay focused. It almost feels like letting out a breath that’s been held for too long.

When his head finally empties, though, something else floats to the forefront.

_Eliot._

He could’ve sworn Eliot was about to talk to him about… 

_About what?_ He wonders. _About some feelings you don’t even know if he has? About a time you barely remember?_ Of course, Quentin remembers some things. Peaches and plums. The puzzle. Endless sunsets. Effortless company. Quiet nights, loud mornings, fighting, cooking, drinking. But now it’s less concrete ideas and more… impressions. Hazy feelings and emotions. He couldn’t give an example of a meal they cooked together, but he knows that they did so, and often.

_Wow, I’m hung up on him,_ Quentin thinks. _He already shut you down. He doesn’t want you._

But at the same time… _“Peaches and plums, motherfucker. I’m alive in here.”_ Wasn’t that something? Didn’t that _mean_ something? That that was what Eliot had chosen to say, just then? It had to, right? Maybe he’d─ _reformed_ , or something, overthought the situation and drawn some conclusions and decided that it was worth a shot, that fifty years was good enough proof of concept. Maybe he’d fished through all the memories, the impressions, and found something worth saving, something worth trying to find and fix again.

And then there was Alice. Alice, who let him keep coming back, Alice, who knew him, Alice, who said _we work better when we’re a team_ ─ Quentin groans and mashes his face into the sheets. 

There’s a knock on the door. He sighs.

“Come in, I guess,” he says, rolling onto his back and propping himself up on his elbows.

It’s Julia. Of all the people who it could have been, he’s glad it’s Julia, even-keeled, steady, logical Julia. Who can coax smiles out of the most unlikely of places. Who knows when to talk, when to listen, when to be firm and gentle. 

Who can read him like an open book.

He pulls himself to an upright position as she hovers, a little uncertain, in the threshold of the door, and pats the bed. 

“You doing okay, Q?” she asks, sitting lightly, carefully on the mattress. There’s just enough space between them: enough that she doesn’t crowd him, but doesn’t isolate herself either.

“I’m─ I don’t even know,” he says. “I… have a lot of _things_. In my head. And I have so much fucking work to do, and now there’s this, and I just don’t know what to do, Jules, I feel like I’m fucking drowning. It’s too much.” He throws up his hands, catching them in his hair. Julia looks at him, brows drawn together, a little surprised by the outburst of candor.

“You know you don’t have to worry about the whole…” she trails off, gesturing at Quentin’s head. “We’re gonna take care of it.”

“Julia, it’s like a fucking cancer,” Quentin says. The statement drops like a bomb in the small bedroom. “The only difference is that it’s not my own cells. What if we can’t find a cure? What if it isn’t treatable? Some stuff just isn’t.” Quentin has started drawing his shoulders into his ears, his breath quickening, hands starting to flutter nervously. “And what if it spreads, and what if it, I don’t know, _takes over_ or something, and─ and─”

“Breathe, Quentin,” Julia says softly, reaching out to take one of his hands. He squeezes it gratefully. His chest rises and falls, slowly, evenly, and his shoulders start to relax. “So maybe it is,” she says. “Maybe it’s not. We’re going to figure out how to get it the fuck out of your head, no side effects, full stop. Maybe that takes three days, maybe it takes three months, but we’re gonna get it sorted.”

“How can you promise that?” Quentin asks, his voice hoarse and small.

“Because we’ve handled everything the universe has thrown at us. And a lot of it has been hard. Like, _crazy_ hard. Sometimes it goes off without a hitch. Sometimes it most definitely does not. But we’ve done it all. And we’re all here, to do the next thing, and the next.”

Quentin sighs. He flops into Julia’s lap, staring up at her face. She smiles. 

“We’re gonna fix it, Q.”


	15. Not a real chapter (sorry guys)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> haha... yikes.

So, uh, I've been in school for three weeks and it is absolutely kicking my ass. I have very little motivation to write anything at all (much less a story I began a year ago and have since lost connection with). I still have an ending in mind for this, and I do still want to end it, but I just don't have the brainpower to spare on a storyline with more than one thread in it right now. I'm tired and kinda scraping the bottom of my "reasons to live" jar and my classes are harder than I anticipated. I don't have a lot of free time in my schedule and the little bits that are left are slowly being eaten away, which leaves me with (guess what) very little time to write. 

All this to say I'm putting this guy on hold for a while. I have a chapter or two that are sort of half-baked which might get posted in the near future, but beyond that, I just don't quite have it in me. I'll be back when I have more of a foothold on what I'm doing and when I've got a little more passion for everything back. Thank you guys for sticking around and commenting and kudos'ing, I don't think I've ever said this but it really does make my day brighter when you do. Love you all. I'll see you when I see you.


End file.
